Hindenburg Flight a Success Until

“Cash for Clunkers” programs the world over are being touted as a success. Meanwhile dealers are wondering how they can sell…just one car… now.

“German Clunkers Scheme Was Surprising Success”

The issue now is whether a recovery in demand will come soon enough to compensate for the end of government incentives.

Recent figures from the U.S., crucial to Mercedes and BMW, suggest that demand for German cars there is recovering. German policymakers can only hope it recovers fast enough that that history judges their wreck rebate as a success and not a boondoggle.

Meanwhile, back here in the states…from the very same edition of BusinessWeek:

After the Clunker Party, an Auto Sales Hangover

“August was the best month of the year, but it’s possible that it could be followed by the worst month this year,” says Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive officer of Edmunds.com.

Essentially, the government pissed away a couple billion dollars in August to incent people that wouldn’t have otherwise bought cars…until…oh my gosh…September! (!!!)

…like other carmakers, GM saw sales trail off after the clunkers program ended. And it appears that the rebates sucked some sales out of September as well. Michael DiGiovanni, GM’s executive director of global market and industry analysis, says that he thinks about 200,000 of the 700,000 cars sold under the clunkers program were pulled ahead from future months.

Well done, libs, well done. You saved the auto industry…for six weeks.

Posted

September 2, 2009

Pork Patrol

Johnny Roosh

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19 responses to “Hindenburg Flight a Success Until”

Right

September 2, 2009

Just another failure by the Obama administration, and one they can’t blame on GWB. The spin going forward will be that they saved millions of polar bears from drowning.
nerdbert

September 3, 2009

J, you’re missing the point.

Owe-bama doesn’t give a rat’s patoottie about saving the auto industry. He cares about saving as much of the auto UNIONS as he can. The distinction is subtle, but telling. After all, look how much of the “New GM” the unions got as compared to their debt, and look at what the “New GM” is focusing on producing — crap that appeals to Obama and his underlings, not stuff that most folks would buy.
penigma

September 3, 2009

Essentially, the government pissed away a couple billion dollars in August to incent people that wouldn’t have otherwise bought cars…until…oh my gosh…September! (!!!)

Insert the word SOME and you might be right, but then again, there are probably at least an equal number who wouldn’t have bought a car at all.
Mr. D

September 3, 2009

It worked out very well for Toyota. That’s something.
Johnny Roosh

September 3, 2009

Insert the word SOME and you might be right, but then again, there are probably at least an equal number who wouldn’t have bought a car at all.

I’ll insert “some” if you’ll stop using “probably.”

And even if you’re right, they’re all gone now and the industry will end up worse off in the long run and so will the taxpayer.

Your arguments are getting weaker and weaker just like your President.
nate

September 3, 2009

No, Pen, the purchaser would have bought a car, just not a brand-new Japanese one. He would have bought a 1-year-old lease return GM car and handed down his old car to a teenager or sold it cheap to a working single mother.

This way, the purchaser bought a nicer car than he otherwise would have bought, his old car was crushed, and the working single mother continues to carry her toddler and her groceries home on the bus.

.
swiftee

September 3, 2009

Insert “some” and you might be right??1?

Peevee, are you permenantly addled, or does the doctor say there is any ray of hope? Why not trot across the street and ask your neighbor the brain surgeon for a second opinion?
Mr. D

September 3, 2009

and the working single mother continues to carry her toddler and her groceries home on the bus.

Naah, she’s using the spiffy new light rail line. Which is highly successful.
Johnny Roosh

September 3, 2009

Naah, she’s using the spiffy new light rail line. Which is highly successful.

You forgot the quotes.

I’m sure you meant “successful”
nate

September 3, 2009

See, here’s the thing, Pen: it’s not enough to have good intentions; you also must consider the consequences.

With the passing of Senator Kennedy, here’s a timely lesson in the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Let’s say we want more tax money. Let’s say we decide it’s fair that the rich pay more taxes, since they can afford it. So let’s say we impose a 50% tax on luxury items – stuff that ordinary people couldn’t afford to buy anyway – like expensive imported cars and yachts. Should raise lots of revenue, hit only those who could afford to pay, and generally be an all-around winner, right?

Except . . . the rich are rich, they’re not stupid. Instead of buying a million-dollar yacht built in America and paying $500,000 tax, they buy a million-dollar yacht built in Italy and spend the $500,000 on the Riveria. No additional tax revenues are collected – in fact, the sales taxes formerly paid on American-built yachts are lost. American yacht makers go out of business so the ordinary working men and women who previously built American yachts get laid off and go on welfare.

Instead of pulling in more revenue and punishing the rich, we pulled in less revenue and punished the working class. This isn’t a hypothetical – look up the history of the luxury tax and see who supported until the effects became known, then who was the loudest advocate for repeal. Yep, same guy, Teddy.

Good intentions aren’t enough, Pen. You have to think the problem all the way through. That’s what went wrong with the luxury tax plan. That’s what’s wrong with the Cash For Clunkers plan, too.

.
Johnny Roosh

September 3, 2009

You have to think the problem all the way through.

You’re asking way too much in an era where the world’s most powerful nation is being run by a teleprompter.
Right

September 3, 2009

Penny boy, you’re a big fan of Karl Marx, aren’t you?

First of all the “couple of billion” is closer to three billion. But’s what a billion dollars to a moonbat?

Obama could have stayed out the auto business and had GM and Chrysler file for bankruptcy. Then the unions would have had to suck it up and GM and Chrysler would now be operating under a profitable business plan.

Instead, Obama bought into two companies as a payoff to his union supporters for the millions they gave him during the campaign. And now he just wasted another 3 billion to subsidize the auto industry.
Chuck

September 3, 2009

” So let’s say we impose a 50% tax on luxury items – stuff that ordinary people couldn’t afford to buy anyway – like expensive imported cars and yachts. ”

Remember when Bill Clinton almost put the Mora Minnesota yacht manufacturer out of business because of his tax on Big Boat? That was funny. He showed those people. I’m sure they all found jobs working at the Mora Kwik Trip.
Mr. D

September 3, 2009

You forgot the quotes.

I’m sure you meant “successful”

Forgot the /sarc tag too, it would appear.
Mr. Shirt

September 3, 2009

“This way, the purchaser bought a nicer car than he otherwise would have bought, his old car was crushed, and the working single mother continues to carry her toddler and her groceries home on the bus.”

Nate,

It’s what progressives refer to as “compassion.” They have far more than you or I, just ask them.
nerdbert

September 3, 2009

“This way, the purchaser bought a nicer car than he otherwise would have bought, his old car was crushed, and the working single mother continues to carry her toddler and her groceries home on the bus.”

The only unintended part of that to the leftists is that the purchaser actually got the car.

If Obama had his way the purchaser would have given his money to the government instead of an evil business and be riding the bus instead of driving a car.
Kermit

September 3, 2009

Yup. Trudging through the snow to the bus stop. Think of all that obesity fighting exercize!
Mr. D

September 3, 2009

Yup. Trudging through the snow to the bus stop.

Yep. The bus stop where she and her toddler get to stand in the cold for 45 minutes waiting for the bus, which is running late because it can’t get through Uptown.
Kermit

September 3, 2009

Maybe she could get a job as a driver for a Politboro, er, I mean Czar’s limo.